


Silver and Gold (Argent et Or)

by melanie1982



Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Guilt, Moral Dilemma, Origins, Other, Questioning, apologies to A Rice, non-canon, what if
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-15 20:18:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7236979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melanie1982/pseuds/melanie1982
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claudia has been having strange dreams which seem more like memories. Has she recovered something from her mortal past? What does it all mean for her future and the future of her 'family'?</p><p>Imagining that Claudia was not the only child Lestat experimented with...</p><p>Wedged into a time between Claudia's adoption and the point at which Claudia tried to murder Lestat. For the sake of this fic, she knows of her birth to darkness, but has not yet decided how to exact revenge.</p><p>Not entirely satisfied with this fic as is. May work on it, or may leave it as it is. Not sure yet.</p><p>Not my characters. Fiction. I make no money from this story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It begins. 
> 
> 'Robert' is pronounced as the French pronounce it - 'Rohbear.'

Louis was the one to approach first. Although he didn't always understand her or have the answers she sought, he listened - truly listened. Claudia knew that he found it harder to lie to her than did her other father. Lestat was pere, always formal, but Louis - Louis was papa. He was the closest thing she had to a conscience, a heart, and she knew he wouldn't be angry with her. 

The dreams were happening now with alarming frequency. Mortal dreams were nonsense more often than not, the workings of an over-tired mind, an imagination spinning out of control, trying to make sense of that brief, chaotic thing called life. Vampire dreams, however, were rich in meaning and symbolism. She kept a diary of sorts of those dreams, and Louis respected that, respected her boundaries. Louis didn't pry. Her tiny mind was a spring trap, and even Louis was not wholly immune to its dangers; some things were better left alone. These dreams were repeating, slight variations, but largely consistent. They felt more like.. memories. Sometimes during waking hours, she'd catch a glimpse of something in the world - a shock of dark hair cut a certain way; a display in a boutique's window; a set of kitten-gray eyes - and she'd feel her body racing, struggling to remember. The answer was there, bubbling under the surface, and she wanted it to boil over, to spill out, so she would know.

Louis sensed her presence before she spoke. Lestat had departed to hunt alone, and these were some of the happiest times for the two of them, even if they weren't in the same room. Just knowing that it would be a quiet, pleasant evening, without drama or strife, was a blessing Claudia suspected creatures like them didn't deserve. He saw in her face that something significant was on her mind, and Louis only hoped he was up to the task of being her anchor. 

She carried in her hands the leather-bound book in which she recorded her dreams. "I want to show you something. Tell me what you think; say the first thing that comes to mind."

Louis took the book from her, longing for the long-ago joy of having her curl up upon his lap, leaning into him until their hearts beat as one. She was a woman now, and he saw it more and more in her dress and mannerisms. Still - when she was vulnerable, when she allowed herself to need him, there was a whisper of the little girl she had been.

As he reviewed the marked pages, he felt the bile of fear rise into his throat. He blinked, and the words remained unchanged. The details were so close to the truth, and the dreams so insistent, he knew that the day of reckoning had come. If the first hurdle had been Claudia learning the truth about her origins, this - this was the second hurdle. Would their little family survive intact? Should he wait for Lestat to - ? No. He needed to broach this now. Lestat would probably only make things worse; Louis needed to administer preventative medicine.

Her eyes demanded a response, and Louis put down the book with a slow, deliberate hand.

"Can vampires go mad, Louis?"

"I don't believe so - at least, not in the way that you mean."

She moved forward, part of her wanting to sit on his lap, the rest of her denying her that comfort. "They don't seem like dreams, Louis. They seem like.. things I've forgotten. I know so little about my old life. Do you ever dream of when you were mortal?"

"Claudia, please - sit."

She moved an ottoman over to his chair, perching herself upon it with as much gravitas as she could. "Tell me, Louis, before he gets home. I need to know."

Louis rose from his seat, but she knew from his movements that he would return. Claudia sensed he would be bringing her something tangible, some physical link to her past. Had he been holding out on her, or had she simply never thought to ask?

He, too, had a book, but this was larger and less ornate than her own. It was a simple sketchbook, available at any number of common shops. It bore no fancy cover, no name to mark its owner, and yet she knew it was his.

As he resumed his seat, he opened to the first sketch. They looked through the pages one by one, and she guessed that these must have been scenes from his past, drawn by his own hand to preserve the memory. She watched as the people, places and experiences came to life, emotions flickering across his face as he gave her this gift.

"You, Claudia, record in words. I record in lines and shapes. I remember. I dream of it all."

He did not describe or name anyone or anything in the pictures. When he turned to a sketch of a young boy with dark hair, she stopped, her small hand clutching his wrist to keep him from flipping to the next page.

"Who is he?"

Louis looked at her for a long moment. "I need to know how much you understand, Claudia. Keep looking through the sketches."

She allowed him to move on, and the next few pages held no meaning for her. At last they arrived at a sketch of the alley, the alley he'd been walking down when he'd heard her crying.

"Louis.. I know.. This was the way to my house. This is where you found me."

He hung his head with renewed guilt. "Yes. What else? Tell me what else."

She eyed the drawings following that one, realizing they were from the interior of her house. "That's where mama did the cooking. Here is the hook where papa hung his coat. This is where we kept the chamber-pot.."

The next page had the same boy from the earlier sketch. He seemed so familiar, and yet.. 

"I don't understand, Louis."

He could feel it in her, the need to remember; she was so close to the truth, and yet she couldn't see it.

"Claudia.. The boy in the drawings is your brother, Robert."


	2. Pain from the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louis divulges more information before Lestat can stop him

She stared at the drawing for a long moment, trying to find in him the resemblance to herself, or the nebulous fragments of her memories known as mama and papa. Mama had dark hair, it was true; what color were her eyes? What color were papa's? Were they gray like the fog, or green like the sea? Claudia was no longer sure.

"Claudia. Claudia.. Listen to me."

She was agitated, picking at her fingers until they threatened to bleed. Her breathing had become shallow, and she felt her heart pounding, that staccato sound filling her ears and drowning him out. 

"My brother. I have a brother."

How old would he be now? Was he still living? She wanted to leap from the chair, to go out into the night searching for him..

"Claudia." Louis touched his hand to her cheek, and it broke her daze. 

"I.. I am sorry. I.."

The lines of his face were already burned into her memory. Were the dreams a sign that he was looking for her, or thinking of her? Was he dead, haunting her?

"I don't know where he is." Louis answered her before she could ask.

"When mama died, I thought I was all alone. Papa had left. Why didn't I.. What happened to Robert?"

He could have lied. Louis could have told her of heroic efforts to nurse her brother back to health; he could have spun a tale of kidnap or murder or any number of falsehoods. Instead, he gave her the truth. She deserved that much.

"He was very sick, like you. Perhaps it was your youth that made you forget; perhaps, the fever. After Lestat and I.. After you became one of us, I went back for him. I felt it was unfair to leave him to suffer alone in that place. Lestat was furious. I'm not sure if he was angry because I found Robert when he had not, or if he.. I will never fully understand certain things about him." Claudia understood.

"What happened? When you found him, was he - ?"

"He was barely breathing. I didn't know Lestat had followed me, so focused was I on the task of finding him. I wavered, not sure whether to kill him and end his suffering, or.."

"Louis?"

"..or to try to make him one of us. I knew it was a risk; four vampires traveling together, the logistics of it.. Lestat told me he would be a liability. A child, a liability! But he said these things after the fact."

She felt his anger rising at the memory of the argument, and tried to soothe him with a hand upon his cheek. It was becoming harder for him to get the words out, but he could not stop. If he stopped now, he might never allow her to broach the subject again, burying it deep..

"I begged him to help me. He chose for me - for all of us."

Louis looked down at the drawing, those gray eyes looking out unseeing, unfeeling.

"He made Robert a vampire. He was born only of Lestat's bite and Lestat's blood, not my own. I can lay no claim to him." It was small comfort. "But I was the one who led Lestat to him, and for that I am sorry."

He paused, fortifying himself.

"When he rallied, I knew Robert had more power than you, and less conscience. Somehow, the fact that I fed from you infused you with a certain sense of right and wrong, or perhaps I let you retain some of the goodness you had in you, where Lestat drained it from your brother - but as I looked at Rober, I knew he had no such boundaries. He was Lestat's own creation, infused with all the anger and unpredictability of his nature. He was.."

Claudia's heart sank. "A monster. Twice the child of hell that I have become."

Louis couldn't deny it. "It seems so."

"What happened to him, Louis?"

Louis spoke with an edge of pain in his voice. "Lestat regretted what he had done. He already adored you, and he saw how I doted on you; playing one off of the other would be easy for him. With another vampire in the group, the dynamics would be different. If there were ever three against one, Lestat might lose; if one of those three held no loyalty to any of us, it could have been all-out war. He decided to leave Robert behind."

Claudia had thought herself shock-proof, but the cruelty and recklessness of that act rocked her to the core. "He just.. let him loose on an unsuspecting world?"

They knew Lestat would be back soon. The air around them was charged with anticipatory buzzing, meaning he was near. He had fed, and would most likely be in a buoyant mood, expecting a captive audience of two to listen to his tales of conquest. They were in no fit state to accommodate him.

"I went back one last time. I told Robert how to feed, how to fend for himself. I gave him a coffin - a crude wooden box cobbled together in haste - and informed him that he would need to replace it, and soon. It was a case of the blind leading the blind; I had no answers for him on the meaning of it all, only lists of do's and don'ts. I knew that if Lestat saw him again, Robert would be destroyed. Perhaps it would've been better. I often ask myself what would've been best, but the truth is, I still don't know." 

Lestat entered their apartment, humming a popular tune. Claudia's gut curdled in disgust.

He didn't miss a beat, though he could sense the dour mood, the anguish in the room. Noticing the sketchbook out of the corner of his eye, he smiled, though it was unkind.

"Ah. Taking a stroll down memory lane tonight, are you, Louis? Showing Claudia your sketches of 'the good old days' before I enslaved you?" A dark chuckle here emphasized the vampire's complete lack of remorse. 

Louis closed the book protectively. Claudia placed a hand upon his, needing his calm, his quiet strength.

"Has he showed you the sketches of the whores, Claudia? Fully-formed creatures of the night, with ripe curves and thatches of hair in places you can't imagine?" He was enjoying this, their discomfort. For such a practiced predator, Lestat seemed oblivious to the danger in which he was placing himself, the kill drive he was inciting in the doll-child before him.

"His sketches are beautiful. Why, the faces alone are worth a thousand words. I find my imagination making up stories to accompany them."

Lestat was nettled by her lack of anguish, but tried not to let it show as he busied himself hanging up his fine jacket. Louis could tell Lestat was curious, but damned if he was going to let her know he was.

"Will you sit with us, father? Will you look at Louis' art?"

Lestat's weakness. How she played upon it. "Very well." He made a show of retrieving a chair, placing it with a flourish, seating himself beside Louis as if claiming him. Claudia thought he reminded her of a barnacle. Louis was a fine ship, and Lestat was the wretched creature whose only life was dependent upon clinging to his side.

"Look. This is where you found me." She turned a page. "This is where you had me rest. Do you remember the room?"

Lestat grinned at Louis. "Yes. The scene of conception. I remember."

"And the maid," Claudia added, pointing to the young woman's visage on the page.

"Baby's first proper meal," Lestat cooed. He had been proud of her. Every accomplishment of his progeny was a reflection upon him; it was what gave her value to him. That, and her ability to keep Louis in his life. Where Claudia goes, Louis will follow, Lestat thought to himself.

She turned the page to a drawing Lestat had not seen before. 

"Louis." Lestat's voice carried a note of warning.

Louis flinched, waiting for the shrieks, the curse words and oaths of hell. Lestat sat rigid, his jaw set firm.

Claudia enjoyed her moment of power. "Now who do you suppose this could be? I don't remember eating him. Did he work at the inn?"

Lestat was now mumbling to himself. The quiet unnerved Louis more than an eruptive tantrum ever could.

"Perhaps the maid had a son? No; he doesn't look like her. He looks like.. why, he looks like me! How is that so?"

Lestat dug his teeth into the side of his cheek, tasting blood. The impudent wench!

"His eyes, Louis. They favor mine. Don't you think so, father?" She was looking at him, at HIM, that traitorous spawn of his blood, and laughing. Her eyes were lit from within with slow-burning contempt and hearty amusement at his expense.

"Enough of this nonsense." Lestat huffed out of the chair.

"It wasn't enough for you to take me from my mother? You had to tear me away from my own sibling. Why didn't you take him, too?"

The cold answering glare would have caused a mortal woman to faint. Claudia was unmoved. "I don't have to answer to you. Or to you," he added, looking at Louis, trying to shame him for his conspiring with Claudia. "So you know. What of it? You're here, and he isn't. What does it matter?"

He turned to walk out, but she wasn't satisfied. He knew more, and she had to drag it out of him. "Why only me? Why not two vampire children at your beck and call? A son, a boy you could model after your own self, to charm the girls and ensnare their older sisters and mothers? Why, father?"

The way she said 'father' evoked the filthiest cuss word, and he recoiled. "Don't you know?"


	3. The Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lestat explains

Louis was waiting. Lestat had never explained his rationale, and he, too, longed for answers.

"I considered it. I considered the kinship the two of you might share; you were, after all, related by blood in the mortal sense. But he was MINE; he wasn't 'mine and Louis'', as you were. With the strength I'd given him, he could - why, he could - "

"He could have threatened your place." She said it for him. "You saw him as competition - for my affection; for Louis'. You didn't want him to become more powerful than you, superior to you in any way. So you let him go, naked and blind into the world. You didn't have it in you to destroy him, so you left him to destroy himself."

Louis found himself mute. He should've spoken, done something, found a way to end this, but he couldn't. That poor boy; that poor vampire child..

"I made him. I could not undo what I had done, but I could leave him to his own devices. A Maker owes nothing to his fledgling." Even as he said the words, Lestat tasted the bitterness of his uncertainty.

"And where do you suppose he is now?" Her voice faltered. Damn her; she hadn't expected to mourn a brother. Why should she feel so much for someone she only remembered in dreams?

"I have no idea." She searched him, searched him for a long moment, and it seemed as true as anything he ever said could be.

"Neither do I. Let there be an end to this. I should never have.." Louis, always ready to heap more guilt upon himself. 

Claudia patted Louis on the hand. "I'm glad to know. I do hate secrets among us. Our little family."

Lestat felt the slightest self-preservatory urge to leave the room, but he stood his ground as she approached. 

"You chose me. No matter the reason. I am here, and he is not."

He didn't trust this. She was being so damned.. detached; reasonable. There had to be a catch.

"Claudia.. He was silver, mere silver. You.." He touched her hair, still like a doll's, those timeless, unchanging blonde ringlets. "You .. are gold."

Louis could scarcely believe there had been no screaming, no clawing of faces or bearing of fangs. Lestat retired early, leaving them alone once more.

"We must find him, Louis."

He knew to whom she was referring, and didn't pretend otherwise. "How can you be sure he still lives? If he does, he is in constant danger, as are we."

"I know he's calling to me. He wants us to find him. Will you help me, Louis?"

Louis looked over his shoulder, toward the chamber in which Lestat's coffin lay. "How, Claudia? He will never - "

"Not now, Louis. When the time is right." There was some hidden phrase there, and Louis hoped he had grasped it, while at the same time hoping she didn't really mean it. "Someday, when we are free."

Louis saw that she was serious in her intent, and only time would tell if she was committed in her action. "Claudia.." He couldn't give her her mortality. He couldn't promise her they'd find her brother. He couldn't allow her body to mature. In the shadow of all that he could not give her, it seemed so obvious that he should offer her the one thing she needed most at that moment: hope.

"If there comes a time when it is safe.. I shall help you search for him."

She sighed, letting it out slowly in a long exhale, emptying herself as though for the last time. "Thank you, papa. Bonne nuit."

What sort of monster had Lestat unleashed? How was he invading his sister's dreams? And what did he ultimately want with her - with all of them?

Louis pored over the sketchbook until his body refused to do anything but slip into its own vampire dreams.


End file.
